


in another life, time might heal

by MavenMorozova



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark Vanya Hargreeves, Episode: s01e10 The White Violin, F/M, Fiveya Secret Santa 2020, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Light Sexual Tension, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, One Shot, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships, Vanya Hargreeves Needs A Hug, canon divergence - season 1, if that makes sense?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:15:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28617903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MavenMorozova/pseuds/MavenMorozova
Summary: And now he’s here, and all his siblings’ excuses are gone,done.It’s only him left, him and Vanya, him a dull, grimy spot of negativity and black coffee and bitterness against her bright glow—quite literally.He does the only thing he can. He whispers to her the only three words he ever dared not to say. The words that always caught on his tongue when they were children, the ones that left him with his sanity in the Apocalypse.I love you.Five blinks once, and the world shatters.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	in another life, time might heal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chevalier_Barthelemy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chevalier_Barthelemy/gifts).



> this fic was written for the Fiveya Secret Santa hosted by @fivevanya on tumblr! My giftee was @chevalier12  
> I hope you enjoy chev! this one's *very* angsty, and vanya's a little...well. she's not alright. (though let's face it- is anyone in this show really alright??)
> 
> with that said, and the tags in place - let's begin!
> 
> ooh - one more thing - this is the song i listened to while writing the ending of this piece, it's some nice listening ambiance if you want to give it ago: [Invitation to the Voyage by Julia Kent](https://open.spotify.com/track/0lKeyieBdV5YTvZZgCFJ33)

White light like electricity sparks across the dark auditorium. Five stands next to the only family he’s ever known, the ones who had fallen and risen beside him throughout his childhood, the ones who he has miraculously returned to now, and he knows it is the end. It’s a swift swoop of surety that breezes across his spine and neck, almost a calming presence, just like the tight squeeze of Vanya’s hand in his.

No—that’s not Vanya’s hand at all, but only his memory, failing him. She’s not standing at his side with a quiet yet firm disposition, but practically radiating energy in front of him—no, she  _ is _ radiating energy, heated white blades cascading into the sky from her chest, exposed. And she’s dying.

_ I have to save her, _ he thinks. He has no choice.

But as Five reaches out to her, the thin pale wrist that protrudes from his body still a foreign alien limb to him, he is stopped in full force by an invisible barrier. It’s not repulsive or rock-hard, but just there, an immovable wall.  _ Vanya’s doing. _ He had no idea she was capable of this.

He hadn’t counted on her not wanting his help.

Slowly, Vanya turns to him, and it’s as if the entire world slows down in seconds, time grinding to a halt with a high-pitched squeal and a pump on the breaks. Five stares into the eyes of the woman he loves, the only woman he has  _ ever  _ loved, and he suddenly can’t breathe.

The soft brown of her eyes is gone, replaced by a crystal blue-white, unnatural and piercing. It feels as if her gaze is boring straight through him, hot like a burning poker, and yet simultaneously a freezing icicle. Both sharp, both terribly painful and raw and...Five can’t hold it for long.

Hating himself, he looks away, breaking eye contact with her.  _ You should be ashamed,  _ his mind whispers to him.

His siblings have all virtually disappeared now, sinking back into the shadows, terrified of their sister.

They should be terrified. Vanya’s raw power is ten times anything they could ever do, and she knows it, and Five knows it. They all fucking know it—the simple truth as the final reckoning approaches.

There are no more half-explained apologies from Allison this time, nor the brutish exclusion from Luther. No halfhearted acceptances from Klaus and moody rejections from Ben and Diego. That’s all been done with, over and over and  _ over. _

This time, Five has decided to change his course. He made his decision long ago as an impulsive thirteen-year-old who wanted to lose the man who dared to call himself their father. See, he knows that now—his terrible impulsiveness rooted in the fear of not being good enough and the hatred that had grown up alongside it, the two causing each other to fester. Five didn’t know how to express it then, and he knows that he was a jerk. He knows that it was his own arrogance that got him caught in the Apocalypse, the Apocalypse with a capital  _ A. _

He elects to ignore that he still carries those two traits with him.

And now he’s here, and all his siblings’ excuses are gone,  _ done. _ It’s only him left, him and Vanya, him a dull, grimy spot of negativity and black coffee and bitterness against her bright glow—quite literally.

He does the only thing he can. He whispers to her the only three words he ever dared not to say. The words that always caught on his tongue when they were children, the ones that left him with his sanity in the Apocalypse.

_ I love you. _

He’s sure that Vanya can tell that this time, it’s not platonic at all.

But it doesn’t matter.

Five blinks once, and the world shatters.

###  ***

There’s a harsh, unrelenting cacophony of sound outside the window when Five wakes.

...He’s  _ awake. _

The world was ending, with him there this time to see it, and he’s actually...alive?

There’s something terrible itching in his brain now, a desperate plea for something he can’t change.  _ He  _ was meant to stop the end of the world, to lead his siblings in a magnificent charge, to save Vanya. Not any of them, but  _ him. _

_ Where the fuck is Vanya? _

Five nearly crashes to the floor as he tears off the heavy layer of covers someone has tucked over him, stumbling over the rug where it meets the creaky wooden planks. This is the old man’s house then, and it’s raining. That’s where the noise is coming from, he realizes.

No—it’s not raining at all. It’s fucking pouring, water practically dumping onto the street in a wall of falling liquid. The outside world is a blur, a mass of greys through the glass.

It makes Five dizzy, and he has to clutch the radiator at his side for balance. Worry hits him like a hunger pang again, insistent and sudden, and Five focuses in on his task. Coffee can wait. Understanding the goddamn weather can wait.

He needs to find her.

Still blinking sleep from his eyes, Five pounds down the flights of stairs, nearly tearing off one of the thinner balusters in his haste. He’s too distracted to pull out one of his spacial jumps, and he doesn’t want to pass her by mistake anyway. “VANYA!” he screams, little-kid voice echoing throughout the old mansion. “VANYA, WHERE ARE YOU?”

She’s sitting in the living room, staring up at something Five can’t see, when he finds her. Vanya is wearing the same crisp suit of yesterday ( **_was_ ** _ it yesterday? _ he wonders), except it has transformed into a brilliant white, something Five hadn’t noticed when she was trying to kill them all.

She looks away from whatever she’s gazing at as Five enters the room, the sound of his heavy footfalls preceding him. “Five. You’re awake.”

“What the fuck is going on, Vanya?” He’s shaking, though not with anger. It’s something deeper than that, rattling the core of his bones and sending him through waves of panic.

One moment, everything had been under control. And now it’s not.

“Calm down, Five,” Vanya murmurs softly, standing from her chair and placing a hand on his arm. Immediately, he stills, feeling the calming presence of her touch, the way the energy waves shifting around her caress him just as she would if she dared. If  _ Five  _ dared.

He lets Vanya wrap her arms around him slowly, each movement accompanied by a small tag attached, a caveat of hesitation. She’s worried about him, he realizes, what with the curves of worry in her forehead and the slight shudder of the objects around them. She’s so new to her power, and everything is so fucking volatile. If he makes one move, something will surely shatter.

“Please just tell me what happened,” Five murmurs into her blazer. “I need to know. I need to know that you’re safe. And that the world is safe.”

She says nothing for a moment, then asks in a light voice, “And what about the others?”

“The others?” he repeats. Then— _ oh. _ “Our siblings.”

Vanya pulls away and nods. “They’re alright,” she tells him, those terrible white-blue hues not quite meeting his. “They’re out of the way.”

Five narrows his eyes at her, chin tilting upward as he examines each millimeter of her face, each crevice. Slowly, he shakes his head. “What have you done to them?”

He feels a chill skitter down his spine as Vanya places a hand on his back, pressing him close so that he has to sit beside her on the loveseat opposite the chair she was sitting on before. With the extra fabric around her body, it’s a tight squeeze, but manageable due to Five’s current body.  _ The body of a child, of a fool,  _ he thinks angrily. This one week trapped within it has not been enough to rid him of the irritation.

“I’ve done nothing that wasn’t called for,” Vanya says after a moment, the corner of her mouth turning upwards.

“They’re not dead, are they?” Five asks bluntly, furrowing his brows. He’s almost terrified of her now, this woman who he doesn’t recognize from the timidness of what she used to be, and he can’t reveal that if yes, if they are all dead, he will have to fight her.

_ I don’t want to have to fight her. Please don’t make me have to kill the only person I’ve ever truly cared about. _

But he will, if she’s done those terrible things. For though Five is a killer, he loves his family despite his better interests. Even if they’re stupid and foolish and selfish, he cares.

“No,” Vanya deadpans. “They’re alive.”

The subsequent woosh of relief is enough to make Five sink back into the cushion, cradled by Vanya’s arm. “Thank you,” he tells her truthfully. “It must have taken a lot of willpower not to do that.”

Vanya chuckles, a dark sound that he doesn’t want to hear from her mouth ever again. “It wasn’t willpower,” she whispers softly. “It was just inability.”

Five shakes his head. “You could kill all of us in one go if you wanted to.”

“No I couldn’t,” she replied back just as quickly. “It’s not because of my powers I’m saying this. I want to kill them. I really do. But I  _ can’t.  _ Every time I try, I just return to this state of denial, this mentality that they’ve made me believe all these years. They don’t fucking care about me, Five! The only one who ever did was  _ you, _ and then you left me forever.”

Five swallows, his throat dry. “I tried to come back, Vanya, you  _ know  _ that.”

“Well you didn’t try fucking hard enough!”

The exclamation is a slap to the face, enunciated with an unexpected curse, and Five staggers from the loveseat, mouth slightly agape. “You don’t mean that, Vanya. I gave up everything! Everyone! I had no life, no future, and I did everything I could to come back. Yes, for them, but mostly for you! I only ever wanted  _ you!” _

He’s breathing heavily now, chest rising and falling in that stupid baby uniform as he stands before her, fists clenched into white knuckles. His mouth has poured from it a litany of emotion; he has nothing else left but Vanya and what she’s done and will do. What she’s doing to him  _ now _ , stealing his breath with the intense stare of her white eyes and stealing his heart with her gentleness  _ and _ fiery rage.

_ She’d make one hell of an assassin,  _ Five thinks. Not that he’d ever want her to be one. Vanya’s too good for that shit, and he would do anything to prevent her being contracted by the Commission. Still, she’s not as innocent as he’d once presumed, and now that she has powers, she needs a safe environment for them. Not the abuse she was under with Leonard—no, Harold—as he has since learned.

And he needs to find his siblings. “Where are they?” Thankfully, his voice has calmed now from the long rant he just went on, and Vanya’s still shocked at his sudden outburst of fury. She almost looks like she wants to cry, though out of relief at his confession (hadn’t he given one before?) or frustration, he cannot tell.

When she attempts to buffer off his question again, he shoots forward and snatches the outsides of her bony wrists, face leaning close to hers. If he wasn’t so horridly young-looking right now, he’d kiss her. But he doesn’t want to scare Vanya off. She’s been through enough, and though he’s far older than her, his teenager-esque appearance is certainly off-putting—or at least it is to him.

“Vanya, tell me.”

She stops him with a finger on his lips, one of those fingers that had flown over the fingerboard of her violin just yesterday, ending the world—almost. It’s chilling now, though that’s mostly because of the low temperatures throughout the drafty house, keeping their extremities cold. Five flinches when she touches him, unable to breathe.

_ Please… _

He doesn’t know what he wants anymore. Safely, security, to be sure...but that’s not enough to sate a human, is it? Even for someone who’s been given a second chance at childhood, someone with the ability to manipulate time and space.

It’s not enough for Vanya, either. So she kisses him, lips pressing to his chastely as Five stills, frozen as she caresses his cheek and pulls away gently. “Vanya…” he whispers, eyes closed. He can still feel the ghost of her touch there, an imprint on his skin.

“I love you,” she admits quietly. “I didn’t tell you back at the theater.”

_ You were too busy killing everyone,  _ Five thinks, not quite bitterly, but close. He opens his eyes to face her, but Vanya’s are still coated with that milkiness of her power. She’s still trapped by it, still cocooned in the haze of anger and revenge. And the pain of not being able to enact it.

“You’re trying to distract me,” Five mumbles, even as his thumb moves along the inside of her wrists, where he can feel raised lines of flesh there, a memory of past trauma. Shivering, Vanya pulls away from his touch, tugging on her blazer’s sleeve.

Five doesn’t let her slip away, grabbing her hand again. “What’s this?” he asks dangerously, voice low as he folds back the fabric encasing her wrists.

They both already know.

“I—” Vanya begins, then stops, grimacing. Her eyes are closed tightly and teeth pressed together in a way he recognizes from their childhood. But she has  _ never  _ done this, not when he was around.

“Vanya…” Five feels his throat tighten sharply. “I’m so sorry.”

He sees her eyes water and she flinches away again. “You see?” Her voice is harsh, almost guttural as she snaps at him. “You see why it’s your fault?” Her chin juts out as she speaks, even as her body pulls back. It’s a dissonance in her that Five knows cannot hold, and his toes clench in frustration. For all his years of life, he only spent the last few around actual people, and even those interactions were fleety. He doesn’t know how to handle something like this.

“Vanya…” he begins again. Then he shakes his head, furious at himself more than anything. For the first time since the Apocalypse, Five feels tears strike his eyes, unexpected wet droplets making him blink rapidly. “I FUCKING TRIED! I wanted to come back; I sold my life to the Commission! I became a killer.” He feels the gravity of his life as a hitman, the life of someone who’s immorality has been bastardized, strike him all at once. “And it wasn’t enough, Vanya. I’m so sorry.”

“You’re still talking about yourself,” she spits, spinning on her heel. Around them, the paintings shake from the hooks on the lavish walls.

“I—” he says, then stops himself. Vanya is right. “You deserved better than me. You are amazing, Vanya, and Dad was wrong to hurt you.”

“I did it,” Vanya whispers, stopping in her tracks. “You know that. And all because I couldn’t control my powers in the first place.”

Five warps over in front of her, careful not to grip her wrists this time. Vanya flinches when he brushes her shoulder, but otherwise does nothing. Slowly, he circles around her so that they are facing each other, and cups her face in his hand. “None of that is your fault, Vanya,” he murmurs as he kisses her, just gently at the corner of her mouth. Now that she’s kissed him, he feels less averse to doing so. “It’s all Dad’s.” He shakes his head, sighing. “He’s not even our dad. Not yours, not mine. Okay?”

“Forget about it,” Vanya replies. Her voice is rough, grated from held-back tears. “None of that matters. You’re alive, and I’m grateful for that. Beyond  _ anything. _ Even if you did abandon me.” She meets his gaze, steeled and armored. “And these scars are old. Music helped me, you know.”

_ The White Violin, _ Five thinks. He wants to comfort her further, but he has his family to find. “But you still won’t tell me where everyone else is.”

Smiling a cold smile, eyes still lit with that soulless white fire, Vanya shakes her head.

Five raises an eyebrow at her. “Fine, then.”

He lets go of her shoulders and walks away, feet taking him instinctively to the place he knows his siblings lie. He knows they won’t be in their beds or anywhere that the living could find in the house.

No.

They’ll be deep down in the catacombs, the home of the dead. The dead and little Vanya. The place that became her prison and then her lair.

He knows so. It’s an overwhelming feeling, knowledge laced with the curdling sense of dread. Five takes in a deep breath.  _ I’ve been through worse, _ he recites in his head, a mantra as he makes his way to the old lift, Vanya only a few steps behind him. She’s like a shadow on his heels, the darkness to his light despite the death that surrounds his face and the bright glow of the energy emanating from her.

It’s ironic, really.

Five does not want to warp there, to arrive too quickly. He’s unprepared, and as he feels cold purpose and dread seep through to his arms from the frigid air of the house, he lets his feet do the work.

When he turns the corner, facing the lift at long last, and steps confidently towards it, the grate sliding open shakily, Vanya is still there, accompanying him. “What are you doing?” he asks her.

She doesn’t reply, only lifting her chin slightly, and Five is suddenly overwhelmed with her ethereal beauty again. It makes his throat tighten just a little, and he has to swallow to clear it. The pain is skittering across his body again, the pain of betraying her.

_ But how could she have done this to our family? _ Five thinks with anguish.  _ She always loved them. _

The lift moves downward slowly, and it’s a smooth descent despite its years of use, it’s ancient age. Shadows flit across the bare spots of light from the elevator’s corners, memories of what might have been.

Then it stops. The lift dings. They have reached the bottom.

Five inhales deeply as he steps from the elevator, Vanya still trailing him. Her face is blank, eyes wide and almost unseeing. She looks like a ghost down here in the darkness, where the only lights to guide him are the dank lamps from the stone ceiling and Vanya’s bare glow.

At long last, Five sees the end of the tunnel, that terrible soundless prison. It’s somehow been repaired, sealed shoddily at the edges with some strong material. “Vanya—how?”

He’s in awe, and despite the danger they’re all in, he is amazed at what her power can do. It’s not only the power to destroy, but the power to heal, to  _ change. _

She smiles at his question, but as Five prepares himself to warp in front of the massive door, he feels a tightening around his throat, a sharp pressure that holds him in place. “Van—”

She’s smiling as she circles around his side, tilting his chin upwards. “Five. You know I couldn’t let you release them back into the world. Not when they could do the same to others as what they did to me.”

Five chokes and sputters, grasping at the empty air that’s wrapped around his throat like a vise.  _ It wasn’t them,  _ he wants to say.  _ It was Dad. Stop! _

He wishes he could tell her so many things. But all he can do is try not to die. He manages to spit out, “You can’t kill me—you won’t—”

“I’m not trying to,” Vanya hisses as she leans in close. He can feel the hot breath of her mouth on the soft skin of his face, feel her cold stare that still is filled with that sense of  _ want _ for him, accompanied by the sting of regret. “If I wanted you dead, you would be. But I’d never want that for you.” She runs a pale finger over his neck. Five shivers. “ _ Never for you.” _

Despite his precarious position, Five finds himself undeniably turned on by her sheer power, her sheer control of the situation. He wants to stop her, and he can’t…

So he succumbs, and as the grip of Vanya’s power clenches around his neck, he gives into unconsciousness.

###  ***

Vanya stands over the form of Five Hargreeves, a boy—a  _ man _ —who is a mix of what could have been a brother, but instead is simply an estranged friend. A lover in a dream she wishes she could have.

He looks peaceful now that he’s unconscious; he could be sleeping if she so believed it. Sighing, Vanya lifts his body, cradling him in her arms despite his weight. She draws on the energy of her quickly-paced heartbeat and the sound of the heels of her boots clicking on the stone as she strengthens herself, easily carrying him back to the lift. Behind her, Allison stares from the window of the prison she built for herself, skin streaked with tears.

_ It’s their fault,  _ Vanya tells herself harshly when she begins to feel the creepings of doubt again.  _ They did it to themselves. _

She will keep telling herself that, and if she’s lucky, Five won’t tilt the scale of her indecision.

###  ***

Hours later, Five wakes again, feeling the tight sting of frustration. Time has encircled itself, it seems; he is right back where he started.

And today, he will try again, if not for himself, for Vanya, and everything he wishes for her in the world. One day, they will be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> Look. there was going to be a happy ending here somewhere, but instead I ended up with this angsty broken mess of characters that i just want to give a hug. so if you ever see elliot or aidan, please tell them to give their characters my love<3
> 
> ...however, I do think that there's hope for fiveya, vanya, and the siblings in this AU. it may take more fiveya bonding time to get there, but i do think that they'd eventually manage to salvage the pieces of their family. for now, this is how the story ends.
> 
> again, chev--happy holidays! it's been a crazy first week of the new year, but I'm wishing you the best in 2021!! (and the same goes to everyone else who's seeing this)
> 
> comments are always appreciated <3 xx


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